TOS questions

I may be opening a Pandora's box, but I assume that most people here on this post know a lot about TOS. I'm in somewhat of a funny spot. I grew up on TOS movies, but then I also grew up on TNG TV. To any of you TOS experts my question is this...what did TNG era TV and movies get right and get wrong, in general of course. Is there something specific about the TNG brand that fans of TOS hated, or really liked? I know that TNG and TOS had certain aspects individually that was great and bad, but that also set them apart. So I say again, what did TNG era TV and movies get right and get wrong in your opinion?

IMO, The Next Generation took itself far too seriously for a show about people in brightly coloured pyjamas exploring the galaxy. The Original Series had it's tongue planted just slightly in it's cheek, which made all the difference when something totally outrageous would come up. TNG fans point at something loopy happening in Trek and cry "WRONG!" whereas for those who enjoyed seeing Kirk take on Apollo himself, it's just another day in outer space...

TNG took awhile to settle in, as I believe is the case with all the spin-offs. I recall that, when it first came out, I didn't care for the exterior of the ship. (I thought it looked like a flounder.) I also missed having a science station, communications station, etc., on the bridge. Troi and her "I'm sensing" spiel got pretty old pretty fast.

The tone and approach TNG took in the first two seasons captured certain elements of TOS which it later dropped - some good, some bad. The good included treating the crewmen as fully-formed adults who didn't necessarily know everyone else's business or carry on like schoolkids. Some great examples include Data telling Q he had no interest in Q turning him into a human, and Riker's curiosity about the Klingon psyche (and the very real danger that Worf would rip him apart limb from limb). After that, everything was spelled out and spoon fed. Even nasty violent Klingon sex became a by-the-numbers ritual.

Interpersonal relationships was drastically changed for TNG. In the original, there was conflict within the crew. In the new series, there was little to no conflict within the crew, and, for the show to be interesting, conflict had be visited upon the crew.

When something went wrong in TOS engineering, Scotty OCCASIONALLY used one or two technical words to tell Kirk what was wrong. Occasionally. Meanwhile the drama continued, the mechanical failure serving to heighten the tension.

From TNG on, the story came to a rock-solid standstill while O'Brien or Geordi spouted 5 minutes of completely made-up words that made no difference to the plot at all, and we sat there waiting for them to finish talking so we could get on with the plot.

I used to be quite harsh with TNG, particularly when it got started, but within the past few years I've softened a lot. I'm one of the few who generally prefers the earlier seasons, particularly Seasons 1-3 and parts of 4. After that I still have no great love for the show. The earlier seasons (as has already been mentioned) felt more connected to TOS in overall tone.

One of the big stumblings of TNG was that the characters weren't that different or distinct from each other. They were near interchangeable. That certainly wasn't true of TOS. Having no friction amongst them was also a problem since the drama and conflict always had to come from outside. I get it was supposed to be a depiction of evolved humanity in the far future, but to 20th and 21st century audiences it doesn't come across as credible.

Also - funny foreheads. Maybe some people thought TOS wasn't credible in showing almost every planet inhabited by perfectly human-looking people. But somehow it seemed even LESS credible that everyone in the galaxy looked the same EXCEPT for different bumps on their forehead. An upsetting side effect of this was having beautiful guest actresses disfigured with goofy shit on their faces.

Well, the counselor was on the bridge to assist the captain in first-contact situations, and dealing with alien diplomats. That, of course, is no reason for her to be there constantly. And, ya know, it was the 80s.

Children were on the ship because families were on the ship. The original concept was for a 10-year mission exploring deep space, far from home. Starfleet couldn't ask someone to be away from their family for 10 years, so the Galaxy class was designed to house whole families in comfort. Hence it's "hotel in space" look - it needed to be a pleasant place to live for 10 years. Of course, the writers threw the whole "10 year mission out of contact" concept away almost immediately.

Have to agree with all the points various posters brought up above. I disliked the fact that GR seemed to do a near complete Federation/Star Fleet retcon (and what was done to the the 'Prime Directive' in TNG was a prime example.)

In TOS the Prime Directive was there to protect developing cultures who had no knowledge of interstellar space flight; or other intelligent life in space. (And the Federation itself often made exceptions if a planet had a badly needed resource - hence situations on planets like Capella in the TOS episode Friday's Child.) The Federation was also not above helping emerging space faring cultures, even if they didn't have Federation values - leading to the situation in the TOS episode Elann Of Toyious.

Yet in TNG it appears the 'Prime Directive' sudenly meant no interference whatsoever in any world not a ,member of the UFP - and it was ridiculous (IMO) to hear Picard say "Well, we can't be involved in another (space faring) culture's internal affairs..." EVEN WHEN it was clear inaction on Picard's part would have a VERY detrimental effect on Star Fleet. <---- Sorry, but I thought part of Star Fleet's mission WAS Federation protection and defense - so Picard (IMO) wasn't much of a Captain or a Federation citizen in that aspect.

Hell, I think even the Star Trek series writer's noticed how ridiculous the attitude was; and that's why we got Section 31 on DS9; as even the writer's realized that if Picard's was the prevailing attitude in the 24th century Federation; there's NO WAY the Federation could have survived WITHOUT the actions of Section 31.

Like most Star Trek fans, I did find elements of TNG I liked; and have episodes I did truly enjoy. But overall, I felt a lot of what I liked in Star Trek to be absent from that show.

Yet in TNG it appears the 'Prime Directive' sudenly meant no interference whatsoever in any world not a ,member of the UFP - and it was ridiculous (IMO) to hear Picard say "Well, we can't be involved in another (space faring) culture's internal affairs..." EVEN WHEN it was clear inaction on Picard's part would have a VERY detrimental effect on Star Fleet. <---- Sorry, but I thought part of Star Fleet's mission WAS Federation protection and defense - so Picard (IMO) wasn't much of a Captain or a Federation citizen in that aspect.

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Taken to its logical extreme, the TNG Prime Directive should prevent Starfleet from defending itself from attack by the Klingons or another warlike race. It's a natural part of their culture to attack other people, so for Starfleet to shoot back would, y'know, interfere with that.

Can somebody tell me why a ship counselor sat on the bridge next to the captain? That never made any sense to me at all.

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My impression is that Troi was on the bridge solely because of her empathic abilities, and not that she was a councilor.

Picard did remark once that it was rare that a ship's councilor would be a Betazed, and we never saw (small sampling) another Starfleet vessel with the councilor right on the bridge. There was a councilor on DS9, but they were not part of the command staff, we never saw one on DS9 until Erza joined the station. Voyager had no third seat on the bridge for one, and there was no obvious councilor prior to the ship being pulled into the delta quad.